Reviewing The Longevity Economy from a Transportation Perspective
By Shared-Use Mobility Center
Nov 3, 2021
Introduction
Through the FTA’s IMI and AIM grants, transportation providers across the country are working to bring innovative solutions to their cities, towns, and communities. Developing new trip planning mobile apps, contactless payments, shuttle services, and autonomous vehicle pilots are just some examples of how grantees are using this funding.
Across all of the IMI and AIM grants, one thing is true: the innovative thinking and solutions being deployed are intended to explore how to make transportation better for people, and people include older adults. Whatcom Transportation Authority (WTA), Greater Hartford Transit District, and the City of Columbus are a few of the grantees who have identified older adults as a target user, but ultimately, providing transportation services to older adults touches all of the projects.
Each month, SUMC hosts different subgroup calls with the IMI and AIM grantees. In these calls, we have heard that it is challenging to market new services to older adults or to get older adults to adopt new services or technology. To help unpack this, we have summarized relevant points from the well-known book, The Longevity Economy.
Note that though this book offers many interesting perspectives about the history of ageism in the United States, housing, and more, this review focuses on summarizing and presenting information most relevant to IMI and AIM grantees and other transportation providers.
Key Takeaways
- Older adults have more money to spend on transportation compared to younger generations.
- Older adults want a transportation system that resembles their past lifestyle.
- Involve older adults in your mobility project’s design process.
- Incorporate activities in your design process that boosts empathy for older users.
- Trip planning and payment apps should be designed to be secure and accessible.
- Older adults are ideal consumers who are often financially secure, educated, and are not afraid to use technology.
Key Takeaways Expanded
- Older adults have more money to spend on transportation compared to younger generations.
People are living longer and healthier than ever, and older adults often have more money to spend than younger generations.
[O]lder adults in the high-income world spend an average of $39,000 per year, while those aged 30 to 44, squeezed by student debt and residual effects of the Great Recession, spend only $29,500. [W]orldwide, older-adult spending will reach $15 trillion (by 2020) (p. 7-8).
Luxury car companies recognize that their more affluent market is older, and that the older market wants to travel in style. High-end automobile companies spend time and resources to research and develop features tailored to older adults.
How can lessons learned from the private sector be applied to the mobility services in your area? Think about how transit systems and vehicle designs can be more attractive to older adults. There could be opportunities to improve existing mobility services. By investing in maintenance and a nice rider experience, everyone benefits.
- Older adults want a transportation system that resembles their past lifestyle.
The current paratransit model is not set up to support the spontaneity or dynamism of life. Transportation systems dedicated to older adults need to think of their target market as people with dynamic lifestyles. They may have their children, grandchildren, or friends to accompany them to the grocery store, and may want to drop by a bookstore on the way home.
Transportation systems, especially those dedicated to serving older adults, need to be reliable while also providing greater flexibility to their customers.
[Paratransit] would readily take you to the grocery store and doctor’s office. But if you wanted to meet some friends for an ice cream cone, you’d better hope they could pick you up, because the system wouldn’t take you there (p. 58).
- Involve older adults in your mobility project’s design process.
Ageism at the workplace is real, and due to the retirement culture, older adults’ experiences and opinions are not represented at the table while products and services are being designed. As consumers with great purchasing power, older adults end up suffering from younger peoples’ designs. However, older adults are and will continue to be well-equipped to solve their own challenges and create their own businesses as they age.
They [baby boomers] are the wealthiest, most highly educated generation ever to achieve old age, and in their lifetimes they have experienced the effects of technological change more profoundly than any other age cohort in history (p. 121).
- Incorporate activities in your design process that boosts empathy for older users.
Aging inevitably comes with minor sensory impairments for all. There are creative ways to boost empathy in your design team for older adults.
For example, MIT’s AgeLab has developed AGNES, an age-simulating suit that replicates the physiological conditions of older adults that we all face or will face later in life. This suit can help you look at your product(s) or design(s) differently and may inspire changes to ultimately make your product(s) and design(s) inclusive and accessible.
AGNES has been deployed during the design phase for a range of products and services. The book provides one example of AGNES being used to test a store layout. The AGNES suit revealed that heavy items like a case of beverages are usually shelved on the bottom shelves, which is hard-to-reach for older adults. The suit also revealed that using neon yellow to highlight prices or announcements were undetectable because
the older you are, the less able you are to tell yellow from white; and blue from black, green, or purple (p.171).
Though this is not included in the book, another idea to boost empathy is using virtual reality headsets to develop prototypes with a good understanding of the unique needs and characteristics of all of your customers. Watch this short video that explains how Ford Motor Company has used virtual reality headsets to design their vehicles with more empathy for different people.
- Trip planning and payment apps should be designed to be secure and accessible.
Designing a product well includes making it safe to use and accessible for all.
Accessible design is a term for building things so that people with disabilities can use them. [I]t’s possible to address accessibility or mental-model issues in such an intuitive, pleasing way that everyone benefits… (p. 185).
Incorporate safety features to protect user accounts and prevent fraud.
Any company thinking about engaging with older adults online should recognize that security and fraud-detection measures are non-negotiable. One recent report estimated that older Americans lose $36.5 billion every year to scammers, a total that would come to about $750 per head if it were distributed evenly – which it isn’t (p. 233).
Design for the inevitable visual changes all older adults face. Use high contrast colors and typography proven to be more legible.
Even without any sort of disease, the lens of the eye becomes gradually more opaque to blue light over time, meaning that the light that reaches the retina appears yellow, which is blue light’s opposite number….The older you are, the less able you are able to tell yellow from white; and blue from black, green, or purple (p. 171).
Smartphones are a great tool that have built in accessible features. Visit the “Settings” and explore how enabling voice commands, increasing text size, zooming in, and increasing volume can make your product or services more accessible.
- Older adults are ideal consumers who are often financially secure, educated, and are not afraid to use technology.
When designing programs, products, or services, design for older adults without alienating, separating, or infantilizing them. Think about designing for your future self, and
put aside the notion that older adults fear technology. That used to be true, but it was more a matter of timing than anything that has innately to do with age (p. 76).
The fact is, older adults do get technology, and by the time the baby boom fully enters its 60s and 70s, it will be the most tech-savvy group of elders ever to have existed (p. 181).
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